7 ms·

It saddens me that every time I see a fediverse-related post on HN, it gets inundated by people who don't "get it" and that is to be expected: fediverse is not

by Yolta 7y ago

It saddens me that every time I see a fediverse-related post on HN, it gets inundated by people who don't "get it" and that is to be expected: fediverse is not Twitter and everybody gets Twitter. That change in mentality is not easy. Fun story: massive influx of users from India recently and the timelines got flooded by posts indirectly asking: "what is the way to fame here? How do I get followers?". Fediverse doesn't work like that. You just… talk with others. There's no "you and your followers". There's "us". Analogy: you are not in a metropole. You are in a village that is extremely well connected to all other villages. You do not need to shout to be heard. I'm on a FOSS-focused instance. We talk all kinds of stuff and FOSS is one of them. I have my Home timeline where I follow all the people I want to hear from (both my instance and all others). I have my Instance timeline where I'm basically guaranteed to read interesting stuff I can reply to and meet new people who also considered this instance to be their haven. And the Known Fediverse timeline… Well, it's fun to browse but come on, imagine a timeline of all tweets on Twitter: mostly useless. Choosing the right instance also involves choosing the right moderators for you. Mods can block other instances. If you don't like what the mods do, change instance or start your own community. After all, it's not Twitter, the people decide how content is moderated, not a for-profit company. That's the fediverse for ya. Hope to see you there!

MrGilbert 7y ago
I like to run mastodon as a single-user, and actively connect to other instances by following certain people. What I find lacking (but that might be a configuration issue): I cannot seem to get the replies to other people statuses, which are not from my server (so, basically, all). That'd be a bummer if that doesn't work.
- zimpenfish 7y ago
  Pleroma v2.0.0[1] lets you hover over the "Reply to" text to get the replied to status in a little popup (which might be new in v2.) But also a little "popout" icon that will open the entire thread in another window (which previously existed pre-v2.) [1] running as essentially a single-user instance.
  - dnpp123 7y ago
    I'm running Pleroma in the same use case, it works fine for me I think. If other people want to do that and switch from Twitter -> Fediverse, I wrote a bunch of scripts to switch from Twitter to Fediverse : https://git.sr.ht/~pierrenn/twitter_escape https://git.sr.ht/~pierrenn/twitter_escape Sadly, this is a bit spammy method, but I had only a dozen or so complaints so far and my "Whole known network" is now seeded pretty well : https://s.pnn.sh/ https://s.pnn.sh/ (this is a small single user home instance on ARM, so it's slow) And TBH I find the Pleroma UI better than Mastodon for the single user instance - plus clicking on the date to get replies in the Mastodon frontend always feels weird (but it's personal taste !)
    - MrGilbert 7y ago
      I'm currently trying to get my head around wrapping Pleroma in Docker, as I've everything dockerized and behind a Traefik proxy. Thanks for the links!
monkin 7y ago
I like the idea behind fediverse, nevertheless it's mostly suitable for HN users or being a replacement for phpBB forums in small communities. > Well, it's fun to browse but come on, imagine a timeline of all tweets on Twitter: mostly useless. BTW. This will happen too, it's just not popular enough to catch that.
- sneak 7y ago
  I started that project, but haven’t had time yet to finish it: https://git.eeqj.de/sneak/feta https://git.eeqj.de/sneak/feta
  - cjslep 7y ago
    Careful with this. A lot of communities don't like scraping of their public content. There was a guy who got booted from archive.org I think for trying to archive an instance that had a lot of under-18 folks' content. I'd encourage you to build a federated app instead. :)
    - sneak 7y ago
      I think you are making the assumption that I am scraping content based on the fact that I am developing a free software content scraper that anyone is invited to use.
      - cjslep 7y ago
        Yep, just like I assume countries that enrich plutonium to weapons grade levels and stick it on the pointy end of an ICBM are threatening others with nuclear weapons, even if they're never launched.
        sneak 7y ago
        If you think developing web spider software is akin to developing nuclear weapons, I think you might want to go have a talk with some larger, well-known companies who have not only half-developed not-yet-working software (like my activitypub spider, which doesn't even have a storage backend at the moment), but who have fully developed advanced web spiders that have actually downloaded and archived exabytes of data from the web, to be saved privately for all time. Frequently they even let anyone who wants search the full text of it, usually without authentication! If you don't want second parties to have copies of your data, configure your webserver not to send it to them when they request it. You can't force someone to do something with an HTTP request.
decentralised 7y ago
I humbly suggest that you have just pointed out the major flaw for federated social networks and decentralised platforms in general: they do not serve the same purpose of Twitter, Facebook and the like. Users come to these popular platforms not worried about what it will take from them, but what they can take from the platforms. Notoriety, fame, a following.. validation or just a business model.
- Kaze404 7y ago
  Why is being different a flaw?
  - decentralised 7y ago
    I don't think being different is a flaw, but people are drawn towards the familiar and what I'm pointing at is that this is the reason why gaining real traction beyond the dev community is so hard.
sneak 7y ago
> Mods can block other instances. If you don't like what the mods do, change instance or start your own community. Doing so costs you all of your followers. This is one of the main issues with the culture of heavyhanded instance operator censorship: you can’t simply switch like you would an email host with your own domain, because few/no AP implementations support bring-your-own-domain virtual hosting. This is like saying “well, if you don’t like that the mail admin simply doesn’t let you email certain domains, just change your email address!”
- klntsky 7y ago
  > Doing so costs you all of your followers This is not true anymore. You can "transfer" your account to another instance, and all the followers will not need to refollow.
  - lainsoykaf 7y ago
    This is sadly not quite correct. You can send out a 'Move' activity from your old account, notifying other servers that you have moved. There's no guarantee that they understand that activity, or, if they understand it, that they actually follow the new account automatically.
    - vertex-four 7y ago
      In practice, nearly all your followers will be using fediverse software that understands and supports Move{Actor} in a similar way to Mastodon. There's not a massive amount of fediverse software - it's not like IndieWeb where everyone does their own thing - and the microblogging-focused software largely implements the same feature set.
      - kick 7y ago
        Most Mastodon instances currently running today don't support it.
        7y ago
Polycryptus 7y ago
> And the Known Fediverse timeline… Well, it's fun to browse but come on, imagine a timeline of all tweets on Twitter: mostly useless. I remember when I first used Twitter in 2006 or 2007 it actually had that as a feature. It was useless, but still fun as you mention.
kod77 7y ago
Feels too complicated to me. Back in the day when ICQ and the first instant messengers showed up, there used to be a "find a friend" feature. You just specified what you were interested in chatting about and it would return a list of people who had said the same thing. That was all it took to meet interesting folk and make meaningful connections. Needs to be simple for civilians I guess is what am saying.
inbetween 7y ago
> a FOSS-focused instance .. people who also considered this instance to be their haven That sounds wonderful - any hint how to find/join that instance? (Searching for mastodon/pleroma FOSS instances doesn't return anything useful here.)
- nenolod 7y ago
  fediverse.network contains fairly exhaustive lists of open registration instances for both pleroma and mastodon

by Yolta 7y ago

MrGilbert 7y ago

I like to run mastodon as a single-user, and actively connect to other instances by following certain people. What I find lacking (but that might be a configuration issue): I cannot seem to get the replies to other people statuses, which are not from my server (so, basically, all). That'd be a bummer if that doesn't work.

zimpenfish 7y ago
Pleroma v2.0.0[1] lets you hover over the "Reply to" text to get the replied to status in a little popup (which might be new in v2.) But also a little "popout" icon that will open the entire thread in another window (which previously existed pre-v2.) [1] running as essentially a single-user instance.
- dnpp123 7y ago
  I'm running Pleroma in the same use case, it works fine for me I think. If other people want to do that and switch from Twitter -> Fediverse, I wrote a bunch of scripts to switch from Twitter to Fediverse : https://git.sr.ht/~pierrenn/twitter_escape https://git.sr.ht/~pierrenn/twitter_escape Sadly, this is a bit spammy method, but I had only a dozen or so complaints so far and my "Whole known network" is now seeded pretty well : https://s.pnn.sh/ https://s.pnn.sh/ (this is a small single user home instance on ARM, so it's slow) And TBH I find the Pleroma UI better than Mastodon for the single user instance - plus clicking on the date to get replies in the Mastodon frontend always feels weird (but it's personal taste !)
  - MrGilbert 7y ago
    I'm currently trying to get my head around wrapping Pleroma in Docker, as I've everything dockerized and behind a Traefik proxy. Thanks for the links!

monkin 7y ago

I like the idea behind fediverse, nevertheless it's mostly suitable for HN users or being a replacement for phpBB forums in small communities. > Well, it's fun to browse but come on, imagine a timeline of all tweets on Twitter: mostly useless. BTW. This will happen too, it's just not popular enough to catch that.

sneak 7y ago
I started that project, but haven’t had time yet to finish it: https://git.eeqj.de/sneak/feta https://git.eeqj.de/sneak/feta
- cjslep 7y ago
  Careful with this. A lot of communities don't like scraping of their public content. There was a guy who got booted from archive.org I think for trying to archive an instance that had a lot of under-18 folks' content. I'd encourage you to build a federated app instead. :)
  - sneak 7y ago
    I think you are making the assumption that I am scraping content based on the fact that I am developing a free software content scraper that anyone is invited to use.
    - cjslep 7y ago
      Yep, just like I assume countries that enrich plutonium to weapons grade levels and stick it on the pointy end of an ICBM are threatening others with nuclear weapons, even if they're never launched.
      - sneak 7y ago
        If you think developing web spider software is akin to developing nuclear weapons, I think you might want to go have a talk with some larger, well-known companies who have not only half-developed not-yet-working software (like my activitypub spider, which doesn't even have a storage backend at the moment), but who have fully developed advanced web spiders that have actually downloaded and archived exabytes of data from the web, to be saved privately for all time. Frequently they even let anyone who wants search the full text of it, usually without authentication! If you don't want second parties to have copies of your data, configure your webserver not to send it to them when they request it. You can't force someone to do something with an HTTP request.

decentralised 7y ago

I humbly suggest that you have just pointed out the major flaw for federated social networks and decentralised platforms in general: they do not serve the same purpose of Twitter, Facebook and the like. Users come to these popular platforms not worried about what it will take from them, but what they can take from the platforms. Notoriety, fame, a following.. validation or just a business model.

Kaze404 7y ago
Why is being different a flaw?
- decentralised 7y ago
  I don't think being different is a flaw, but people are drawn towards the familiar and what I'm pointing at is that this is the reason why gaining real traction beyond the dev community is so hard.

sneak 7y ago

> Mods can block other instances. If you don't like what the mods do, change instance or start your own community. Doing so costs you all of your followers. This is one of the main issues with the culture of heavyhanded instance operator censorship: you can’t simply switch like you would an email host with your own domain, because few/no AP implementations support bring-your-own-domain virtual hosting. This is like saying “well, if you don’t like that the mail admin simply doesn’t let you email certain domains, just change your email address!”

klntsky 7y ago
> Doing so costs you all of your followers This is not true anymore. You can "transfer" your account to another instance, and all the followers will not need to refollow.
- lainsoykaf 7y ago
  This is sadly not quite correct. You can send out a 'Move' activity from your old account, notifying other servers that you have moved. There's no guarantee that they understand that activity, or, if they understand it, that they actually follow the new account automatically.
  - vertex-four 7y ago
    In practice, nearly all your followers will be using fediverse software that understands and supports Move{Actor} in a similar way to Mastodon. There's not a massive amount of fediverse software - it's not like IndieWeb where everyone does their own thing - and the microblogging-focused software largely implements the same feature set.
    - kick 7y ago
      Most Mastodon instances currently running today don't support it.
      - 7y ago

Polycryptus 7y ago

> And the Known Fediverse timeline… Well, it's fun to browse but come on, imagine a timeline of all tweets on Twitter: mostly useless. I remember when I first used Twitter in 2006 or 2007 it actually had that as a feature. It was useless, but still fun as you mention.

kod77 7y ago

Feels too complicated to me. Back in the day when ICQ and the first instant messengers showed up, there used to be a "find a friend" feature. You just specified what you were interested in chatting about and it would return a list of people who had said the same thing. That was all it took to meet interesting folk and make meaningful connections. Needs to be simple for civilians I guess is what am saying.

inbetween 7y ago

> a FOSS-focused instance .. people who also considered this instance to be their haven That sounds wonderful - any hint how to find/join that instance? (Searching for mastodon/pleroma FOSS instances doesn't return anything useful here.)

nenolod 7y ago
fediverse.network contains fairly exhaustive lists of open registration instances for both pleroma and mastodon